


judging time by the streetlights

by toxica939



Series: jack verse [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Hand Jobs, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:45:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxica939/pseuds/toxica939
Summary: jack verse.High school AU. The one where Jensen isn't a miserable, tortured artist type but Jared is an Adonis.





	judging time by the streetlights

**Author's Note:**

> It is unlikely that I will be moving all my fics over here but jack verse is pretty close to my heart so I wanted it safe. Unchanged since originally posted to LJ in 2009.

Friday nights always go like this. Pile into Chad's basement, door locked tight, hot bodies strewn across worn out beanbags and retro horror on the flat screen. Pass a too-fat joint around and pretend the stolen whisky bottle between your knees doesn't burn on the way down.  _These are the best days of our lives._  
  
It has occurred to Jensen intermittently throughout his life that his friends fucking suck. Friday night just makes it obvious. There's probably some other crowd he could be hanging out with right now. A bunch of people who don't consider backcombing a legitimate way to spend an evening. Maybe even a bunch of people who go out every now and again.  
  
“Cheer up Jack,” Sophia rolls sideways until she's on top of him and Jensen cups his hands around her hips, steadying. She's all smokey breath, glazed eyes lined with smeared blue glitter.  
  
Jensen kisses her forehead and wraps her up. “I'm fine, Soph.”  
  
Sophia rolls her cheek back and forth against his chest, kicks at Milo when he makes a grab for her feet. “You're not even in the same room as fine honey.”  
  
:::  
  
The house is empty when he gets home Saturday morning and the door slamming shut sounds too loud. He can see his mom's work shoes kicked off by the door, Mac's scrunchie on the table where the phone lives.  
  
There's a note taped to his cereal box, just like always.  
  
_Taken Mac to swim practice. Have a shower and cheer the fuck up kid ♥_  
  
Sometimes Jensen really loves his mother.  
  
He takes his cereal upstairs and kicks a path from his bedroom door to the bed, clothes flying like sand. It's not like he's some miserable, tortured artist type. Although, yeah, he does like art class and he doesn't like people. It's not even like he really spends his days wallowing around in his sweatpants listening to sad music and blogging about the state of the universe (only on Sundays anyway.) It's just, senior year starts in three days and he's going to have to decide what he wants to do with his life and Jensen feels like he's been standing still for the last few years. It's like everyone else is on fast-forward and he's up to his knees in quicksand.  
  
It's just fucking scary, okay.  
  
:::  
  
If Chad is the sort of friend Jensen keeps around because he has a pretty cool basement and a tongue almost as sharp as Jensen's own, then Milo is the sort of friend Jensen should probably cut loose. Because Milo  _is_  a miserable tortured artist type and it's fucking annoying.  
  
Like today, Milo's got a streak of cobalt blue paint smeared across his cheek, probably on purpose, and jeans that are more hole than pant. It would be embarrassing if Jensen wasn't too cool for that. He's also like, really nice. Which has always made Jensen uncomfortable.  
  
“So, my mom wants me to go to business school,” Milo says, handing off an artfully decorated bowl of ice cream to Jensen and heading out back. Jensen secretly thinks it's pretty cool that Milo has his own studio, even if it is really just a glorified shed in his backyard.  
  
“Dude, it reeks in here,” Jensen gasps, choking on his mint choc chip. There's a canvass propped against the far wall to dry. It's huge and a shocking shade of blue blurring out to black. It doesn't really look like anything at all but Milo would say it isn't meant to.  
  
Jensen folds his legs up under him and sits right in the middle of Milo's dust sheet. He thinks for a while about keeping quiet. “That sucks man, tell her where to go.”  
  
Milo rolls his eyes, “Not that easy though is it? She's got all these hopes for me and stuff.”  
  
Milo's brother died in eighth grade and his mom seems to be handling her grief by desperately piling all of her dreams on Milo's shoulders. It's a thing.  
  
He shrugs, “Easier than going along with it. You really want to turn into some briefcase douchebag with a Blackberry stuck to his fucking ear? You're better than that dude.”  
  
Milo squints, “Did you just give me advice? Supportive and encouraging advice?”  
  
He deserves the spoonful of ice cream he gets for that, a mint green splatter to match the blue stripe. “Get bent. You love me.”  
  
It's possible that Jensen is not actually a terrible person. He doesn't want that getting around though.  
  
:::  
  
Laurence Harbor, while not the place where dreams set sail, is the only port on Camden Island (population nineteen hundred) and there is nothing Jensen likes more than cramming on to the dock with a bunch of other sweaty teenagers at eight in the morning. Fuck the first day of school.  
  
Jensen has often wondered how much easier his life would be if he lived over on the mainland. He figures at the very least he wouldn't have to get a boat to school. That'd do.  
  
They find seats on the top deck and Jensen spends the first seven minutes of the journey watching Sophia tangle her hair up into ever more complicated knots. It's like performance art, only shitty.  
  
Jensen tips his head back and watches the sky, gray and overcast, float past in ripples of paper-thin clouds. He tunes out Chad yammering on in his ear because this morning is annoying enough already.  
  
“Hey Jensen,” the hand squeezing his shoulder belongs to Katie Cassidy, the bubble blonde cheerleader in knee socks and her boyfriend's letterman jacket that Jensen tutored in chem last year. “You have a good summer?”  
  
Jensen saw Katie at least twice a week this whole summer because she's been bagging groceries in the store across from his mom's coffee shop. She has received a play by play of his entire summer during their three minute conversations at the checkout, because frankly, his life is not very interesting.  
  
“Sure, great summer. You?” Is what he says in the end because Katie doesn't know him particularly well and his actual personality would probably offend her.  
  
They make small talk for a while, which Jensen isn't very good at in general, until Katie drifts away.  
  
“Dude, you should totally hit that.”  
  
Chad is an acquired taste. “Dude,” Jensen says, “Not enough cock.”  
  
Even Milo smothers a laugh at the face Chad makes. “It is too early for your level of homo. Soph show me your tits, I need a new mental image.”  
  
“I'll show you my foot in your balls. And don't say tits, it's tacky.”  
  
Jensen tunes them out again, but not because they're boring him, Sophia's threats against Chad's manhood are never boring. He's ignoring them because he's found something better to look at. Jesus.  
  
Jared Padalecki coming up the stairs, hands huge and tan as he taps fists with Brock over in the corner. Katie had said Jared was spending the summer in Texas, working on his grandparents' ranch. What she hadn't mentioned was they way he'd finally grown into his limbs. He's fucking enormous, hair whipping in the wind and dimples deep set. Jared Padalecki is glorious and Jensen kind of wants to draw of picture of his face on the toe of his Chucks or something equally ridiculous. It's slightly startling.  
  
:::  
  
Naturally, now that Jared's gone and turned himself into an Adonis over the summer, while Jensen mostly sat around rotting, they bump into each other everywhere. Even places Jensen only goes because nobody else is ever there.  
  
Like, Camden Island is so small that it's pretty much all coast. And not even really in a cool, look at all these cosy little bays with pebble beaches where you can sit alone and pretend you're in an oil painting kind of way (although there are a couple of beaches like that, but they're usually pretty full of people pretending it's still summer at this time of year.) Camden Island is mostly coast in a rocky outcrop, steep drop to your death kind of way. Not quite as cool. But there's a little playground down by the dock, over grown and rusty, it's kind of behind the bookstore but only because that's where the only path to it Jensen knows of is.  
  
Jensen's mom says his dad used to bring him here in summer, back before they finished landscaping the new park on the other side of the island. Sometimes Jensen will sit on the concrete where the swings used to be, nothing but frame now, and imagine his dad. Most of his memories aren't real, learnt from photographs and the stories his mom tells, so carefully worded. He never knows if the pictures in his head are his own or borrowed.  
  
Right now, Jensen's sitting in the dirt pretending to finish his math homework and Jared Padalecki is heading right for him.  
  
“Hey Jensen.” Jared's got his hands twisted deep in the pockets of his hoodie, school colors of course. He looks about as surprised to see Jensen as Jensen is to see him.  
  
Jensen doesn't say anything, just moves his bag so Jared can sit down if he wants. He's not totally sure he can actually form a coherent sentence to Jared's face.  
  
Jared drops down with a soft whoosh of warm air, long legs reaching out for miles. He smells clean and like nothing at all.  
  
“I didn't know anyone else even knew this place existed,” Jared says. He doesn't sound like he feels awkward.  
  
Jensen rolls his shoulders, watches Jared lace his fingers together in his lap and does not think about those hands on him.  _Your gay is showing Jensen._  
  
“I used to come here with my dad,” he says. And now it's awkward, because of course Jared knows his dad's dead. No one ever made small talk work with an opener about their dead dad.  
  
But Jared just nods, “I think mine just used to take me over to the mainland. To the football field.”  
  
It's nice that he doesn't make that sound like a bad thing. From what Jensen can gather the only reason Jared's any sort of jock at all is because he actually likes playing football a whole lot.  
  
“I actually wanted to ask you a favor,” Jared says after a while. “Does your mom happen to need any weekend staff? I kind of need a job pretty quick.”  
  
Jensen wants to ask why, because Jared's family is pretty loaded. He's fairly sure they have like, a car on the mainland and stuff. But seeing as that's Jared's business and not his Jensen nods his head, “I can ask. I think Ashlee Green just quit to go back to college.”  
  
Jared's smile is like the sun rising. “Thanks man, totally cool.” He starts to get up and then seems to think better of it, “Hey, you busy?”  
  
Jensen looks down at the math book in his lap. He's scribbled over most of the questions.  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“You like movies? My dad just set up this new entertainment system and I've got like four hundred old school zombie movies need watching,” he offers.  
  
And really, he can copy Milo's math homework.  
  
:::  
  
They're halfway through Day of the Dead when Jared says, “So, you don't seem to like me much.”  
  
The Padalecki's actually have a real entertainment room with a projector and shit so Jared's face is lit in moving pictures, dimples like black holes. Jensen hopes the dark is hiding his flushed cheeks.  
  
“Sure I do.”  
  
Jared quirks an eyebrow, “You avoid me in the halls.”  
  
“You hang out with Brock Kelly,” Jensen retorts. “Brock Kelly, I do not like.”  
  
“He's not that bad.”  
  
“He's worse than Chad.”  
  
Jared laughs. “Wow, lucky Chad. Does he know how lucky he is to have a friend like you?”  
  
Jensen knows for a fact that Jared and Chad used to be on the same Little League team and that they've had a weird relationship ever since. Like, Jensen's pretty sure they'd call each other friends even though they never ever speak to each other. It's probably the only way a normal person can maintain a relationship with Chad, actually.  
  
It takes Jensen so long to realize the quirked corner of Jared's mouth means he's being teased that he forgets to answer. But Jared's got this fond sort of look in his eye, so maybe that's okay.  
  
Movie nights with Jared become sort of a thing after that but they still don't talk in the halls.  
  
:::  
  
So Jensen doesn't actually work at Jenny Bean (he know's okay? His mother lives to torture him) but he does get called in when his mom can't find anyone else. Normally it would suck and Jensen would bitch about it until his mom threw something at him, today it's pretty okay. Jensen is honest enough to admit that it's more to do with the fact that Jared's behind the counter with him today than the fact he's finally fulfilling all of his cool potential by starting to enjoy coffee.  
  
There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than passing orders for overpriced coffee off to Jared, who smiles brightly every time their fingers brush.  
  
“Skinny late with gingerbread syrup please.” Milo's got purple paint in his hair and Sophia's name in marker up the inside of his left arm.  
  
Jensen passes the order off for Jared to make and uses his own marker to add  _Jack_  to Milo's other arm.  
  
Jared hands the cup over with another one of those shocking grins. “Jack?” he asks.  
  
Jensen shakes his head, “Long story dude. Hey Milo, this is Jared, he digs zombies.”  
  
It's not how you'd usually introduce someone but Milo's kind of shy and Jensen's kind of socially inept.  
  
By the time Milo leaves, Jared has agreed to spend his Friday night in Chad's basement and Jensen's lit up inside like a Christmas tree because Jared's palm is wide and hot across his back when Jared leans across the counter to slap Milo's hand goodbye. He's not sure it's a pleasant feeling.  
  
Jared sticks around to help him close up, wiping down the coffee machines while Jensen mops the floor. It's not even like he's going to get paid for this manual labor either. Jensen hopes his mom knows how lucky she is.  
  
It's dark out now, chill in the air because Halloween's creeping up on them. Jared offers to walk Jensen home because it's on his way. Which is true, if Jared takes the long way home. It's just cold enough for Jensen's breath to think about fogging and definitely enough that the streets are empty at nine thirty. There are only like three cars parked along Main Street because it's fucking pointless having a car on an Island the size of a postage stamp unless you're transporting stuff.  
  
It's nice to walk with Jared and not have to speak. Hands in his pockets and the street lights washing over them in waves. Yellow then black, yellow then black.  
  
“I needed a job because I totaled my dad's car in June and I have to pay for repairs myself,” Jared says out of the blue.  
  
“Okay?”  
  
Jared laughs a little, shoves a hand through his hair. “That's why I got shipped off to Texas this summer. Because I got drunk and I drove my dad's pick up through a wall.”  
  
Jensen blinks. “ _Through_  a wall?”  
  
“It's a big truck.”  
  
“Okay. That's.” Jensen ducks his head, “That's actually pretty cool. Like, not smart y'know? Obviously. But cool. Pretty James Dean.”  
  
Now Jared does laugh, bumping Jensen's shoulder. “I haven't told anyone else that. I'd get so much shit from coach it's not even funny, just for the drinking. Let alone damaging private property. My dad's trying to keep it quiet.”  
  
“Why'd you tell me?” They're at Jensen's house now and they pause by the gate.  
  
Jared rolls his lips between his teeth. Jensen's got an uncle who does that a whole lot only he doesn't have any teeth, just gums.  
  
“Because you got me a job with your mom and you didn't ask why you were doing it.”  
  
It didn't matter why, Jensen thinks. I'd do anything if you asked me to.  
  
Jensen watches the Alderson's ginger cat stalk across the street, chasing shadows. It's safer than looking at Jared the way he wants to.  
  
They stand for a second, just breathing until Jared startles into motion. “So, I'll see you at school?” he asks.  
  
“Sure.” Jensen wishes he could dial down the eagerness, hopes Jared didn't notice.  
  
Jared pats him twice on the chest before he leaves, fingers curling a little in Jensen's shirt. It makes his heart pound it's way right up into his throat.  
  
He watches Jared walk away. He wants to bottle the moment, the stillness in the air, the freedom another day off before school starts for the week. He wants to always feel the way he feels right now. Light and fluttery and nothing like himself.  
  
“Jensen,” his mom yells, screen door banging open, “You jerk off in my flowerbed over a Padalecki and we are done professionally.”  
  
“Shut up, we have neighbors,” he shouts back, heading inside. The moment's gone but the memory of it is still fresh. Definitely his.  
  
:::  
  
Friday night does not usually go like this. Jensen's as wrecked as he usually is, joint pinched between his fingers because he thinks Sophia's had enough. Everything would be normal except this week he's got Jared sprawled across his lap in a drunken haze instead of Soph. It does things to him.  
  
A woman in a white sundress is running for her life on the TV and Jensen thinks fuck it, pushes Jared's hair back from his face, twists his fingers in the strands until they feel sore. Jared stretches into the touch like a cat. Like Jensen is the warmth of a fucking fireplace and Jared is basking in him. God he wants Jared to bask in him.  
  
Jared's eyes blink open, black and bottomless, drawing Jensen in. His free hand curls around the back of Jared's neck and he knows he's not the only one holding his breath. He cannot kiss Jared. He cannot kiss Jared.  
  
Shit.  
  
Jensen lurches to his feet, dumping Jared off to the right and heads for the stairs. He's stumbling in his haste and because he's stoned as fuck.  
  
Chad's kitchen is dark and deserted. Jensen's face feels like it's burning in the cool air. He heads to the faucet to splash it with cold water, feels like he's burning up from the inside out and Jared's lighting matches.  
  
A warm weight presses up against Jensen's back and he braces himself with a hand either side of the wash basin. He knows Jared by smell at this point.  
  
Jared's hands spread like brands across Jensen's chest and Jensen feels Jared nose up under his ear. His head falls to this side because can't help himself. It's like being wrapped up in a blanket of awesome, Jared's everywhere.  
  
And then there's a hand tugging at his belt, pulling open his jeans and even Jensen's muddled mind knows they're in Chad's kitchen in the dark, with everyone else just down the basement steps.  
  
“What are you doing?” he hisses, panicked. He doesn't move away.  
  
Jared mouths kisses down Jensen's exposed neck. “Touching you. You're so fucking pretty Jensen. You have no idea.”  
  
And then there's a hand sliding into his jeans. Hot like fire and clammy and slick. Jensen sags back against Jared's chest, head rolling on his shoulder when Jared starts to jerk him off. Quick twists of his wrist and just enough pressure under the head. Jensen can't breathe, everything has dropped away to this, to Jared taking him apart from behind. He moans and whimpers and rubs himself back all over Jared's chest because everywhere they're pressed together feels like electricity.  
  
Jensen comes in slick ropes up the inside of Jared's wrist, all over his own shorts and he's still panting for air when Jared puts his clothes back together.  
  
Jared steps away and cold rushes in and Jensen knows, suddenly and painfully that he's going to freak out. He cannot handle this, not from Jared.  
  
He whirls around, “What the fuck was that?”  
  
Jared's got his bottom lip anchored between his teeth, worrying. “I don't. I don't know. A handjob?”  
  
That is not fucking funny.  
  
“Jared,” he hisses, terrified of someone hearing them, “What the fuck?”  
  
Jared doesn't say anything, just stands there waiting for the ground to swallow him up or something.  
  
Jensen feels sick. Can actually feel it welling up inside. “Well maybe you should have figured that out before you touched the gayboy's dick. This is not experimentation hour.”  
  
Jared face crumples up, “That isn't.”  
  
But Jensen doesn't want to hear it. Slams his way out of the house before he can make a bigger idiot out of himself than he did gasping and writhing and coming all over Jared.  
  
His mom startles in surprise when gets home, thunders straight up the stairs and falls face first into his pillows. Sometimes he wishes the world would just disappear and leave him the hell alone. It is not worth it.  
  
“Oh baby.” His mom creeps into the room, he can hear her and feel it when the bed dips and her hand smooths his hair. “You want to talk about it?” She smells like coffee and cookies, same as always.  
  
Jensen shakes his head, “Never,” he tells his pillow.  
  
She sighs, but not annoyed, mostly like her heart hurts for him, “Y'know what your dad used to tell me whenever we had a fight? He used to say “I sure as hell must love you because I wouldn't let anyone else make me feel this shitty.””  
  
Jensen rolls on to his back, the over head light hurts his eyes. “That's real romantic mom,” he says dryly.  
  
Her lips purse, “It's romantic because it's real. Because we felt it. It's as romantic as you want it to be.”  
  
“Well this isn't the same.” Man, he wishes it were like that. He wishes Jared felt like that about him.  
  
His mom presses their foreheads together, the way she always does when she's frustrated with him. “Baby, it never is.”  
  
:::  
  
“So how's the moping going?” Sophia asks.  
  
It's Thursday afternoon, sundown. Jensen stayed late after school at the library like he has all week and the boat home was supposed to be empty.  
  
“Are you stalking me?”  
  
She quirks an eyebrow, “Are you avoiding the question? Because I left Chad and Milo below deck to do this the nice way. I can get them up here if you like.”  
  
Jensen deflates. Typical.  
  
“I'm fine, Soph. Seriously. There's no need for an intervention.”  
  
“Yeah because you always take off in the middle of movie night and leave Jared Padalecki crying in Chad's kitchen.”  
  
“He cried?”  
  
Sophia's mouth drops open. “I knew it!”  
  
Jensen forces is face to go perfectly blank. Watches the sun slip away.  
  
“You're in love with Jared. You want to have his gay babies. And no, he wasn't crying because he isn't actually a little girl, unlike some people.”  
  
“Fuck you.” He wishes she wasn't so infectious.  
  
She quietens beside him, reaching out to grab his hand. “You love him?”  
  
Jensen shifts awkwardly, that is so. “I don't know.” God, he felt that truth spill out of him like bile.  
  
“Jack, what are you doing? You need to talk to him.”  
  
“I don't need to do anything. I'm not going to be some straight boy's experiment. I don't need that shit.”  
  
“And you know that's what it is for him, do you? He's told you this?”  
  
Jensen ignores the sinking feeling in his belly. “He doesn't need to.”  
  
Sophia shakes his hands in both of hers, “Jack,” she says, quiet and sad, “What are you so scared of?”  
  
It's dark out now.  
  
:::  
  
Jared opens his front door in soft looking sweatpants and a dirty t shirt, his eyes are soft and warm and he does not look like he wants to slam the door in Jensen's face the way he should. Jensen has to swallow around his own tongue.  
  
“Hey,” he says, stalling.  
  
Jared smiles a little, curls a hand around the door frame and doesn't invite him in. “Hey.”  
  
Jensen wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans, “So, I'm an asshole. Sorry about that.”  
  
Jared laughs a little disbelievingly, “Yeah,” he says, “You're stupid too. And so fucking blind.”  
  
He probably deserved that.  
  
“I'm crazy about you, you stupid asshole.”  
  
“What?” Jensen says, stupidly.  
  
Jared curls his hand around the back of Jensen's neck, tugs him in until their belly's touch. “I'm crazy about you and your stupid perfect face and your bitchy little mouth and I hate zombie movies.”  
  
Jensen doesn't know what to say. Jared likes him. Actually likes him.  
  
He cups Jared's face in his hands and pulls him down, wants to climb him he's so big. “Jesus. Me too, for so long.” He hopes Jared knows he isn't talking about zombie movies.  
  
Jared shuts him up with a kiss, muffled apologies giving way to Jared's wide, wet, smiling mouth. He wants to write sonnets all over Milo's arms in honor of Jared's bottom lip.  
  
“You hate zombie movies?”  
  
Jared ducks his head and Jensen lets himself smooth a hand right the way down Jared's broad back. “I paid off the repair bill on the car like a month ago too, it wasn't like I didn't get paid this summer.”  
  
Jensen's life is fucking awesome.


End file.
